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Our  Pulpits 

and  the 
New  Theoloe-y 


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(Tanno  air  Clrrttm 


Our  Pulpits  and  the  New  Theology 


Delivered  at  the  lyytJi  A  uncial  Meeting 

of  tJie  General  Association  of  Connecticut 

at  A^orwich  Jnne  i§  1886 


By  BURDETT  HART 

Minister  in  New  Haven 


EDWARD    P    JUDD    liOOKSELLtR 
New  Haven  Conn 


Beloved,   while   I   was  giving    all    diligence    to    write 

UNTO  YOU  OF  OUR  COMMON  SALVATION,  I  WAS  CONSTRAINED 
TO  WRITE  UNTO  YOU  EXHORTING  YOU  TO  CONTEND  EARNESTLY 
FOR  THE  FAITH  WHICH  WAS  ONCE  FOR  ALL  DELIVERED  UNTO 
THE   SAINTS. 

St.  J  tide. 

Now  I  BESEECH  YOU,  BRETHREN,  MARK  THEM  THAT  ARE 
CAUSING  THE  DIVISIONS  AND  OCCASIONS  OF  STUMBLING,  CON- 
TRARY TO  THE  DOCTRINE  WHICH  YE  LEARNED  :  AND  TURN 
AWAY    FROM    THEM. 

St.  Paul. 


OUR   PULPITS 


AND  THE    NEW    THEOLOGY 


2  Corinthians  4  :  ij.  But  having  the  same  spirit  of  faith,  accord- 
ing to  that  which  is  written,  I  believed,  and  therefore  did  I 
speak  ;  we  also  believe,  and  therefore  also  we  speak. 


"^^  liT!  fhli^-^  H  E  pulpits  of  Connecticut  have 
^^^A  not  been  accustomed  to  an  un- 
certain sound.  Our  ministers 
have  been  men  of  faith.  They 
have  known  in  whom  they  have  beheved  and 
also  what  they  have  believed  ;  and  they  have 
spoken  with  undoubting  confidence  of  one  and 
of  the  other.  Their  theology  has  been  a  Bib- 
lical Theology.  Their  ethics  has  been  based 
on  holy  Scripture.  It  has  been  enough  for 
them  to  fortify  what  they  had  to  set  forth,  by 
"Thus   saith   the    Lord."     Their   hearers   have 


OUR   PULPITS 

not  been  wont  to  go  away  in  wonder  or  in 
doubt,  either  as  to  the  doctrine  or  the  conduct 
which  they  intended  to  teach  and  enforce. 
The  hearers  have  had  convictions  because  the 
preachers  had  intense  convictions.  The  su- 
preme rule  of  faith  and  practice  was  formu- 
lated from  the  Word  of  God.  Our  forefathers, 
driven  from  cultured  homes  and  ordered  soci- 
ety to  the  loneliness  of  the  wilderness,  found  a 
sufficiency  of  law  and  wisdom,  both  for  the 
creed  of  the  church  and  the  constitution  of  the 
State,  in  the  divine  oracles.  The  '*  plantation 
covenantT"  which  preceded  all  civic  or  ecclesi- 
astic institution  at  Quinnipiack,  provided  ''that 
as  in  matters  that  concern  the  gathering  and 
ordering  of  a  church,  so  also  in  all  public  affairs 
that  concern  civil  order,  they  would  all  of  them 
be  ordered  by  the  rules  which  the  Scripture 
held  forth  to  them."  The  Commonwealth, 
builded  on  the  Bible,  holds  lucid  ideas  and 
clearly  defined  principles  of  belief  and  behav- 
ior.    If  in   our  day  a  doctrine  of  doubt  has 


AXD    THE   iVElV    THEOLOGY. 

come  to  the  front,  it  is  not  in  accord  with  the 
traditions  of  the  Commonwealth.  If  we  are 
invited  to  welcome  hypotheses  and  specula- 
tions that  set  aside  or  w^eaken  the  Scripture, 
we  may  feel  that  the  invitation  comes  from  an 
alien  hand,  from  a  mind  foreign  to  the  genius 
of  our  accredited  theology.  If  it  be  claimed 
amongst  us,  that  the  Bible  has  become  an  anti- 
quated Book  and  that  it  cannot  be  relied  on 
either  for  science  or  religion,  for  geographical 
or  spiritual  teaching ;  that  Christ  had  such 
limitations  of  human  nature  that  He  believed 
that  which  was  not  true  and  set  forth  radical 
error  in  His  teachings ;  that  the  sacrifice  of 
the  Son  of  God  for  human  guilt  was  a  transac- 
tion for  scenic  effect  ;  that  men  who  do  not 
attain  salvation  in  this  life  will  be  accorded  a 
future  probation  and  that  all  souls  will  be 
eventually  saved ;  that  the  Biblical  statement 
of  the  separations  of  the  judgment  is  a  picto- 
rial exaggeration  ;  that  no  gospel  of  redemp- 
tion is  really  needed  for   the   heathen   world  ; 


OUR  PULPITS 

that  correct  theories  of  natural  depravity  and 
the  regeneration  of  the  soul  are  given  in  the 
old  Unitarianism  :  we,  on  the  other  hand,  can 
claim  that  our  historic  creeds  include  no  such 
mis-beliefs ;  that  we  have  neither  inherited 
them  from  the  fathers  nor  permitted  them  to 
be  taught  in  our  schools.  We  can  claim  that 
the  preaching  of  our  pulpits  maintains  belief 
in  the  total  depravity  of  human  nature,  in 
atonement  as  a  vicarious  sacrifice  of  a  divine 
Person  for  the  sin  of  the  world,  in  regenera- 
tion as  a  radical  change  of  character  wrought 
by  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  the  melancholy  eternity 
of  punishment  for  those  who  end  this  life 
unsaved.  Because  we  also  believe  and  there- 
fore also  we  speak,  we  want  something  more 
than  the  sound  of  orthodoxy  with  regard  to 
the  Bible,  the  holy  Trinity,  atonement,  future 
punishment,  while  the  substance  itself  is  want- 
ing. We  want  an  atonement  that  will  account 
for  the  communion  table.  We  mournfully 
accept   a  doctrine  of  future  punishment  that 


AND    THE   NEW   THEOLOGY. 

cannot  be  dissolved  into  any  hypothesis  of 
restorationism.  We  hold  a  belief  of  Inspira- 
tion that  gives  us  an  undoubted  Word  of  God, 
vital  with  authority  and  charged  with  infalli- 
bility. 

It  may  be  well  that  we  should  now  consider 
some  things  which,  at  the  present  juncture, 
impose  responsibility,  and  promise  invigora- 
tion,  in  our  pulpit  work. 

I.  There  should  be,  in  our  pulpits,  an  avoid- 
ance of  the  taint  of  agnosticism.  As  ministers 
of  Christ,  and  teachers  of  the  people,  we  have 
to  do  with  known  truth.  There  are  realms  of 
mystery ;  but  our  course  does  not  run  into 
them.  There  are  problems  that  are  unsolved  ; 
it  is  no  part  of  our  task  to  break  down  in  their 
attempted  solution.  There  is  criticism  which 
is  destructive  ;  but  we  are  called  to  the  better 
work  of  salvation.  Our  ministry  is  a  Christian 
ministry.  Our  ministry  is  a  New  Testament 
ministry.  We  are  the  preachers  of  divine 
revelation.     We   are  the  ordained  servants  of 


OUR  PULPITS 

Him  who  said,  "We  speak  that  we  do  know, 
and  bear  witness  of  that  we  have  seen."  His 
charpfe  to  His  servants  is,  Go  unto  all  the 
world  and  preach  unto  it  the  preaching  that  I 
bid  thee.  "  Go  ye  and  make  disciples  of  all  the 
nations,  teaching  them  to  observe  all  things 
whatsoever  I  commanded  you."  Our  instruc- 
tions* are  plain  and  they  are  concerned  with 
plain  things.  It  is  no  part  of  our  calling  not 
to  know  whether  apparent  discrepancies  of  the 
Scriptures  can  be  removed.  The  ministry  is 
not  set  to  promulge  unknown  and  unproved 
inaccuracies  of  the  inspired  Word.  Their 
credit  would  not  be  increased  by  announcing 
the  refutation  which  the  gospels  give  of  their 
own  infallibility.  **  Illogical  inferences  from 
negative  evidences "  are  not  the  substance  of 
gospel  preaching.  We  put  confidence  in 
Christ.  We  give  credit  to  St.  Paul.  We 
take  the  truth  that  "men  spake  from  God, 
being  moved  by  the  Holy  Spirit,"  and  that 
truth  we  give   to   those   who   hear,    believing 


AND    THE   NEW    THEOLOGY. 

that  "every  Scripture  inspired  of  God  is  also 
profitable  for  instruction  which  is  in  righteous- 
ness." Our  hands  and  our  hearts  are  full  of 
that  which  is  well  known  and  which  is  of  vast- 
est concern  to  all  men.  Our  work  is  with  that 
which  is  openly  revealed  ;  for  "  the  things  that 
are  revealed  belong  unto  us  and  to  our  chil- 
dren forever."  The  agnostic  has  no  proprie- 
torship in  the  Connecticut  pulpit. 

II.  Our  pulpit  work  must  stand  on  a  clear 
conviction  of  the  place  which  a  biblical  theod- 
icy holds  in  a  faith  that  is  true  and  saving. 
We  may  not  have  a  philosophy  that  can  indi- 
cate the  ways  of  God  with  men.  We  may  not 
be  able  by  our  subjective  methods  to  construct 
a  system  that  shall  be  satisfactory.  We  may 
lose  ourselves  when  we  appeal  to,  and  rely  on, 
any  ethical  principle.  But  we  have  something 
better.  Philosophy  is  not  Scripture.  Psy- 
chology is  not  Revelation.  We  want  the 
Biblical  terms.  We  must  be  taught  by  inspi- 
ration.      '*  Even    as    the    Holy    Spirit    saith " 


OUR  PULPITS 

must  be  the  preamble  to  our  conclusions. 
We  want  a  system  that  in  its  drift,  in  its 
solidarity,  is  a  compact  deduction  from  Scrip- 
ture. Sentimentalism  will  not  do.  A  rose- 
water  theory  is  not  strong  enough  for  the 
demand.  In  this  case  we  want  the  nerve  and 
muscle  of  the  fathers.  We  want  the  courage 
of  convictions  that  are  forced  and  enforced  by 
revealed  truth.  We  cannot  accept  of  proposi- 
tions that  either  subvert  or  weaken  the  Word. 

The  attractive  side  of  our  faith  falls  in  with 
the  tendencies  of  our  times.  Men  who  minis- 
ter to  men  would  win  them  on  the  plane  on 
which  they  live.  So  we  have  had  set  forth  a 
gospel  of  affectionateness,  and  the  world  has 
been  sought  through  the  gentler  and  milder 
aspects  of  the  divine  administration.  God  is 
love,  but  ''  righteousness  and  judgment  are  the 
habitation  of  His  throne." 

Dr.  Watts,  who  wrought  the  diction  of  the 
Hebrew  Psalms  into  the  meanings  of  Chris- 
tianity, near  the  close  of  his  life,  said,  that  of 


AND    THE   NEW    THEOLOGY. 

all  the  converts  to  spiritual  religion  whom  he 
had  known,  only  one  had  been  led  to  his  first 
awakening  by  the  amiable  aspects  of  Christian 
truth.  The  history  of  all  great  awakenings 
confirms  the  principle  so  stated.  Men  must 
have  some  adequate  sense  of  the  need  of  salva- 
tion before  they  will  earnestly  seek  salvation. 
They  must  appreciate  their  guilt  before  they 
will  value  redemption.  They  must  feel  the 
awfulness  of  doom  before  they  will  fly  to  the 
Saviour.  The  true  theodicy  must  find  its 
bearings  in  all  the  attributes  of  the  Almighty. 
If  it  has  stayed  on  a  partial  support,  it  must 
be  righted  to  the  needs  of  the  times  and  of  the 
souls  of  men.  The  preaching  of  the  great 
Evangelists,  as  of  the  successful  pastors,  has 
its  substratum  in  a  doctrinal  theology  that 
sweeps  the  field  of  revealed  truth.  Amidst 
the  mysteries  in  which  the  divine  government 
of  the  world  is  shrouded,  our  prayer  should 
rise,  "Teach  me  thy  way,  O  God." 

III.   The  great  central  truths  of  our  pulpits 


OUR  PULPITS 


live  and  act  in  power  only  by  constant  and 
explicit  teaching.  That  which  we  also  believe 
we  must  also  speak.  And  we  must  speak,  as 
the  Apostle  said  he  spoke,  not  in  words  which 
man's  wisdom  teacheth,  but  which  the  Spirit 
teacheth  ;  and  our  gospel  must  come  unto  the 
people  not  in  word  only,  but  also  in  power, 
and  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  in  much  assurance. 
Christianity  is  not  builded  on  negations.  The 
gospel  of  our  Lord  will  not  make  conquests  by 
implications.  The  great  preachers,  from  the 
days  of  St.  Paul  to  these  times,  have  done 
something  more  than  to  assume  the  truth. 
They  have  put  it  before  men  in  terms  that 
were  explicit,  in  language  that  could  not  be 
misunderstood.  They  shrank  not  from  de- 
claring the  whole  counsel  of  God ;  and  this 
whether  men  would  hear  or  forbear.  At  all 
events  the  truth  must  be  uttered.  They  did 
not  emasculate  the  Scripture  for  the  sake  of 
ears  that  were  too  polite  to  hear  the  language 
of  the  Son  of  God  !     They  did  not  neutralize 


AND    THE   NEW    THEOLOGY. 

the  revealed  facts  by  the  soft  diction  of  a 
feeble  age.  They  preached  the  preaching  that 
the  Lord  Jesus  preached,  and  they  witnessed 
the  Pentecostal  results. 

If  there  has  been  a  dereliction  of  sinewy 
speech  in  the  pulpit  in  this  respect  it  may 
explain  the  defection  of  the  times.  The  faint- 
ness  of  utterance  has  resulted  in  famtness  of 
faith.  The  feebleness  of  preaching  has  dead- 
ened in  the  minds  of  the  hearers  the  inherited 
sense  of  the  weightiest  facts  which  God  has 
revealed  to  influence  human  conduct.  Belief 
will  die  in  no  surer  way  than  of  inanition. 
The  Apostle  tells  us  that  ''  solid  food  is  for 
full-grown  men,  even  those  who  by  reason  of 
use  have  their  senses  exercised  to  discern  good 
and  evil."  And  solid  food  will  produce  full- 
grown  men.  The  sturdy  faith  of  our  fathers 
came  from  the  stalwart  doctrines  of  our  pulpits. 

The  opposition  to  our  faith  is  urged  with  no 
lukewarm  spirit.  We  are  not  assailed  with 
implications.     We  are  boldly  faced,   in  front. 

«5 


OUR  PULPITS 

If  we  are  to  maintain  ourselves  we  must  hold 
forth  the  truth  with  ''answering  courages." 
We  must  push  to  the  front  the  heaviest  battal- 
ions. We  must  adopt  the  policy  which  carried 
Waterloo,  of  pounding  the  hardest  and  the 
longest.  Sin  must  be  regarded  as  exceeding 
sinful.  Hell  must  be  regarded  as  a  fact.  The 
errors  that  are  sapping  the  foundations  of 
our  ecclesiastical  structures  must  be  sternly 
rejected.  We  must  have  a  holy  ardor,  a  pro- 
phetic passion,  for  the  truth,  which  will  neces- 
sitate positive  deliverances.  We  must  have 
the  Biblical  afflatus  for  the  things  that  are 
revealed  of  God.  The  Bible  is  explicit.  The 
old  art  of  war,  by  which  Elijah  and  St.  Paul 
wrought  victory,  needs  restoration. 

IV.  The  policy  of  our  pulpits  needs  to  be 
adjusted  to  the  fact  that,  beiore  the  people, 
the  whole  system  of  Biblical  truth  depends  for 
its  intensity  and  its  hold  on  the  doctrine  of 
endless  retribution.  The  mass  of  men  come 
at  it  through  that  avenue.     The  faces  of  men 


AXD    77/E   XEIV    THEOLOGY. 

look  forward.  What  is  to  be  is  paramount 
with  them.  The  stupendous  argument  of  an 
eternal  doom  prostrates  all  human  logic  and 
answers  all  the  lies  of  sophistry.  It  is  the  one 
thing  that  wickedness  shudders  before.  It  is 
the  first  thing  that  skepticism  assails.  Christ 
announced  it  with  tones  that  have  tears  in 
them.  He  reiterated  it  as  though  no  amount 
of  warninor  could  be  too  orreat.  The  creeds  of 
Christendom  have  taken  it  from  His  divine 
lips.  To-day  our  Christianity  is  weakened,  is, 
in  some  quarters,  paralyzed,  by  the  virtual 
denial  of^  this  terrible  truth ;  and  not  our 
Christianity  alone  but  our  social  morality  also. 

The  meaning  of  the  Gospel,  in  the  popular 
conception,  depends  upon  the  human  need  of 
what  the  Gospel  should  be.  If  men  are  not  in 
so  bad  a  plight  as  to  deserve  endless  penalty, 
they  do  not  see  the  emergency  which  the  Bible 
seems  to  urge.  If  the  Gospel  does  not  find 
men  in  a  state  in  which  they  must  have  it,  it 
lacks  hold  on  them.      If  the  alternative  be  not. 


OCR   PULPITS 

the  salvation  of  Christ  or  the  perdition  of  the 
lost,  there  is  no  extreme  exigency  which 
compels  choice.  And  if  the  sense  of  that  is 
relaxed  the  whole  system  cools  in  point  of 
intensity.     Pressure  at  all  points  is  let  up. 

It  is  in  the  inevitable  course  of  things  that  if 
the  doctrine  respecting  the  state  in  which  men 
are  is  diluted,  all  cognate  doctrines  will  be  also. 
Depravity  becomes  emptied  of  meaning.  The 
atonement  is  changed.  The  work  of  the  Spirit 
is  reduced.  Saving  the  soul  becomes  a  vastly 
less  intense  business  at  all  points,  whether  in 
intellectual  convictions  or  in  religious  life. 
Spiritual  conditions  are  all  revolutionized  by 
this  result,  and  men  feel  it  to  be  so  if  they  do 
not  logically  prove  it.  It  is  not  enough  to 
retain  the  old  names  ;  men  need  the  Scriptural 
ideas.  The  suggestion  of  a  post-mortem  pro- 
bation, the  argument  for  a  final  restoration, 

"  That  good  shall  fall 
At  last— far  off— at  last  to  all," 

antagonizes  the  entire  system  of  Biblical  truth. 


AND    THE  NEW   THEOLOGY. 

V.  It  is  a  duty  providentially  assigned  to 
the  pulpits  of  Connecticut  to  arrest  the  present 
alien  drift  not  only  toward  schismatic  doctrine, 
but  toward  irreligious  life.  If  we  silently  and 
supinely  allow  the  threatening  errors  to  have 
free  course,  God  may  allow  us  to  live  through 
their  normal  results.  The  new  theology  is  an 
encroachment.  It  does  not  speak  in  our  lan- 
guage. It  is  not  in  any  harmony  with  the 
divinity  that  we  inherit.  It  antagonizes  the 
faith  of  our  churches.  If  its  invasion  shall  be 
a  successful  one  we  shall  repeat  the  history 
of  other  times.  A  sickly  sentimentalism  will 
supplant  our  brainy  and  brawny  belief.  Revi- 
vals will  grow  scant  in  number  as  in  power. 
The  creeds  of  our  churches,  the  rich  legacies 
of  former  faith,  will  wax  pretentious  but  will 
be  emptied  of  meaning.  An  enervated  system 
of  missions  will  testify  that  the  old  fire  is  out. 
Experience  will  become  flat.  Preaching  will 
lose  its  soul. 

So  God  has  commonly  corrected  pernicious 


OUR  PULPITS 

errors  in  His  churches.  He  has  saved  them, 
it  may  be,  but  by  fire  that  has  well  nigh 
consumed  them.  Good  men,  at  first,  have 
adopted  the  error ;  it  has  descended  to  worse 
and  weaker  men ;  then  it  has  borne  fruits 
which  could  not  consist  with  the  renewed  soul. 

God  forbid  that  to  us  should  come  such 
melancholy  catastrophe  !  But  if  He  does  for- 
bid it,  it  will  be  through  our  use  of  adequate 
corrective  agencies.  Our  preaching  must  be 
in  power,  and  the  power  must  be  that  which  is 
the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  And  for  this 
three  things  are  demanded  : 
•  First,  Our  ministers  should  not  allow  their 
hearers  to  think  that  they  do  not  believe  the 
important  doctrines  which  they  do  believe,  nor 
that  they  do  believe  doctrines  which  they  do 
not  beheve.  They  should  be,  first  of  all, 
honest  preachers. 

Secondly.  They  should  preach  the  truth 
because  they  will  understand  and  appreciate 
it  more  fully  if  they  preach  it  than  if  they  do 


AXD    THE   NEW    THEOLOGY. 

not  preach  it.  And  they  should  believe  that 
which  can  be  preached.  It  is  poor  advice  that 
a  minister  of  the  gospel  should  not  preach  the 
doctrines  that  he  surely  holds.  He  is  commis- 
sioned to  believe  and  therefore  also  to  speak. 

Thirdly,  They  should  deepen  their  belief 
and  detect  their  errors  by  the  test  of  preach- 
ing. Preaching  that  pleases  the  impious  and 
dissatisfies  the  pious  may  serve  to  detect  the 
error  of  the  doctrine.  Some  clergymen  have 
changed  their  doctrinal  views  by  applying 
them  to  the  hearts  of  their  hearers.  Human 
hearts  are  preordained  touchstones  of  divine 
truth. 

We,  my  brethren,  may  not  fully  appreciate 
the  drift  of  perilous  doctrine  nor  the  tendency 
which  comes  from  it  to  irreligous  life.  But 
the  new  theology  is  full  of  peril.  It  is  lower- 
ing the  inspired  standard,  making  men's  inter- 
pretations of  nature,  history,  society,  conscious- 
ness, equal  to  it.  It  sweeps  away  the  time- 
relations  of  Scripture,  which  our  Lord  empha- 


OUR  PULPITS 

sized.  It  emasculates  the  Word  of  God  in 
that  it  minimizes  the  greatest  and  most  awful 
truths.  It  breaks  down  the  old  faiths,  creates 
doubt,  and  then  enacts  the  abandonment  of 
the  truth  that  lost  men  need.  It  largely  neu- 
tralizes the  doctrines  of  depravity,  atonement, 
regeneration,  retribution.  It  lures  men  on 
blindly  to  a  doom  which  they  can  neither 
adjourn  nor  evade."^  It  puts  human  reason 
into  equality  with  divine  Revelation.  It  lacks 
system,  and  lies  loose  in  individual  minds,  and 
has  no  common  consensus  of  belief.  It  starts, 
as  if  new,  foreign  questions,  that  former  con- 
flicts have  settled  with  us.  The  President  of 
one  of  our  old  Colleges  has  remarked:  ''The 
old  Unitarianism  is  repeating  itself  in  the 
same  way  in  which  it  manifested  itself  seventy 
years  ago." 

It  is  alien  to  our  churches.     There  is  not  a 

*  Until  the  gospel  does  fill  the  whole  earth  knowledge  of  it 
must  be  given  after  death  to  those  who  are  deprived  of  its  bless- 
ings before  death. — Progressive  Orthodoxy,  p.  2^6. 


AA'D    THE   NEW   THEOLOGY. 

tang  nor  a  tact  of  Congregationalism  in  it.  It 
is  antagonistic  to  ''the  faith  which  was  once 
for  all  delivered  unto  the  saints."  And  it 
works  out  into  practical  badness.  Lured  by 
the  idea  of  a  continuous  probation,  or  of  a 
final  restoration,  the  young,  in  harmony  with 
what  they  are  taught,  are,  at  painful  hazard, 
claiming  that  they  will  have  a  good  time  now 
and  take  the  chances  of  the  future.  No 
preacher  can  effectively  insist  on  immediate 
repentance  who  promises,  or  who  is  under- 
stood to  promise,  abundant  opportunity  for  it 
in  the  future.  Philosophy  controls  life.  Doc- 
trine will  dominate  conduct.  The  teachinsrs 
of  the  pulpit,  as  heretofore,  will  report  them- 
selves in  practical  affairs.  Said  a  business  man 
to  me,  a  member  of  one  of  our  oldest  churches, 
and  standing  in  the  very  center  of  a  great  city's 
business :  You,  as  a  clergyman,  can  know 
little,  as  we  in  business  know  it,  of  the  prac- 
tical effect  of  the  new  theology  upon  business 
habits.     From  Monday  morning  till  Saturday 


OUR   PULPITS 

night  we  see  the  evil  influence  of  these  new 
doctrines  on  men  who,  to  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  accept  them,  in  the  weakening  of  their 
sense  of  obligation  and  in  their  incHnation  to 
postpone  their  payments.  And,  to  my  ques- 
tion as  to  the  certainty  of  this  effect  from  the 
cause  he  named,  he  said  :  It  is  perfectly  evi- 
dent to  us  that  these  loose  business  habits  are 
the  consequence  of  these  religious  errors. 

It  will  work  out  more  widely  still.  So  far 
as  the  new  theology  has  influence  it  will  con- 
tribute to  ecclesiastical  rupture  and  to  social 
demoralization.  As  a  theology  among  us  it 
cannot  be  permanently  successful.  It  may 
succeed  in  weakening  Congregationalism,  pos- 
sibly in  dividing  our  churches.  The  division 
in  sentiment  is  already  an  accomplished  fact ; 
the  outward  event  only  waits  a  fit  occasion  ; 
and  that  occasion  is  challenged  by  the  strange 
demands,  by  the  open  threats,  of  the  new  theo- 
logians. It  may  succeed  in  merging  itself  into 
Episcopacy,  or  into    Unitarianism  or   Univer- 


AXD    THE   XEIV    THEOLOGY. 

salism.  It  has  made  the  prospects  of  Episco- 
pacy brilhant  beyond  all  former  precedent. 
And  Universalism  cherishes  the  proposal  to 
abdicate  in  its  favor.  A  leading  layman  writes 
to  me  :  *'  It  has  seemed  to  many  thoughtful 
men  in  the  denomination,  that  if  the  present 
drift  of  opinion  continued  to  gain,  they  should 
be  driven  from  their  long-cherished  and  revered 
church,  to  some  other  holding  more  firmly  to 
the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints,  and 
having  a  foundation  that  was  not  movable 
with  everv  turn  of  the  tide."  An  influential 
clergyman  of  the  North-west  writes  :  ''  I  know 
of  more  than  one  Scandinavian  church  that 
would  be  Congregational  to-day  were  it  not 
for  the  harm  thus  done  to  our  good  name." 
This  vague  theology  has  in  it  the  very  ele- 
ments which  not  only  alienate  fellowship  and 
paralyze  faith  but  which  pervert  practice. 

Connecticut  has  been  strong  in  virtue  be- 
cause it  has  been  strong  in  the  faith  of  infalli- 
ble Scripture.     Our  churches  and  our  ancient 

35 


OUR  PULPITS 


College  have  stood  in  the  confidence  of  Chris- 
tian men  because  they  are  planted  on  an  in 
spired  Bible  as  their  basis.  Timothy  Dwight's 
Theology  has  been  the  bulwark  of  Yale  Col- 
lege. The  substantial  orthodoxy  of  our  pul- 
pits has  given  our  churches  the  sympathy  of 
sister  communions  in  other  parts  of  our  land. 
Moreover,  the  old  faith,  in  the  old  light, 
has  been  proved.  The  history  of  our  churches, 
through  many  eventful  years,  is  the  grand 
memorial  of  it.  Society  among  us,  in  our 
Christian  homes,  our  institutions  of  learning 
and  charity,  our  organizations  of  race-wide 
benevolence,  in  the  intelligence  of  our  people 
and  in  the  character  which  the  commonwealth 
has  maintained,  is  monumental  of  this  faith. 
It  draws  back  our  wandering  sons,  from  the 
savannas  of  the  South  and  the  widely-hori- 
zoned  prairies  of  the  West,  and  from  strange 
nations  to  this  realm  of  the  mountain  and  the 
sea-shore,  that  they  may  kneel  once  more  on 
the   graves  of   the    forefathers,    and    hear   the 


AXD    THE   .VEIV    THEOLOGY. 

echoes  from  altar  and  from  cliff  and  from 
thundering  surf  of  voices  that  thrilled  but  are 
stilled,  and  catch  the  inspiration  of  doctrine 
which  made  our  founders  and  our  freedom 
and  our  glorious  heritage  what  they  were,  and 
carry  back  to  the  waiting  peoples  fire  from 
the  beacon-lights  that  still  blaze  along  our 
coasts,  as  the  Aztecs  carried  to  all  their  homes 
and  shops  blazing  brands  from  the  altar  on 
which  fire  was  kindled  from  the  sun  ! 

The  splendid  ascendency  which  we  have  vin- 
dicated has  its  germ  and  life-force  in  this  faith. 
The  fine  authority  which  we  have  carried  forth 
into  other  spheres  and  other  realms  has  come 
from  enduring  reliance  on  the  authoritative 
word  of  God,  and  from  the  character  which 
has  been  matured  in  that  reliance.  The  power 
which  we  have  easily  wielded  over  men  of 
alien  blood  and  belief,  and  which  is  higher 
than  any  that  is  represented  by  scepter  or  that 
is  conferred  by  suffrage,  has  been  the  product 
of  our  sinewy  and  masculine  faith. 


OUR  PULPITS 

No  throne  stands  on  such  eternal  principles. 
No  aristocracy  has  such  undisputed  title.  No 
lineage,  traced  by  blood  and  sanctioned  by 
deeds,  gives  such  undoubted  right. 

The  sway  of  opinion  is  continental  :  it  is 
ethnic.  We  stand  in  our  theological  right 
because,  in  ^the  judgment  of  our  peers,  we 
deserve  to  stand  there. 

All  this  we  can  throw  away.  We  can  mis- 
use our  position  ;  but  it  will  be  by  disloyalty 
to  Him  who  has  raised  us  to  this  rank,  by 
treachery  to  the  truth  which  is  our  choice  in- 
heritance. Our  great  past  cannot  save  us. 
The  glory  of  our  early  history  holds  no  re- 
demption for  us.  The  great  names  of  our 
fathers  can  confer  no  honor  on  our  recreancy. 
The  brilliant  exploits  which  have  illumined  our 
career  will  shed  no  luster  on  our  melancholy 
perversion.  If  we  betray  the  faith,  we  shall 
lose  our  leadership  ;  and  shall  deserve  to  lose 
it.  We  shall  be  no  longer  *'  the  first-born  of 
God  "  on   this  continent.     The  blessings  pro- 

28 


AXn    THE   NEJV    THEOLOGY. 

nounced  upon  our  "ten  thousands"  shall  dis- 
solve and  pass  away.  The  old  prestige  shall 
be  obliterated,  and  we  shall  sink  to  a  common 
place. 

But  this  need  not  be  ;  we  cannot  think  that 
it  will  be.  Rather,  shall  we  stand  by  the  tried 
ensigns  ;  rather,  shall  we  build  on  the  proved 
foundations.  If  our  Lord,  in  His  providence, 
is  assigning  to  us,  as  a  present  duty,  the  up- 
holding of  the  old  standards  of  doctrine  and 
of  life,  we  shall  prove  that  we,  in  our  day, 
can  meet  our  obligation,  as  our  fathers,  in 
their  day,  fulfilled  the  trust  that  God  wonder- 
fully committed  to  them. 

Faith  must  speak.  Faith  in  Christ  must 
speak  the  words  of  Christ.  Living  faith  must 
carry  living  words  to  the  lost  and  the  dead. 
And  as  we  also  believe,  therefore  also  must 
we  speak. 


29 


i    PHOTOMOUNT 
)  PAMPHLET   BINDER 

Manufactured  by 

6AYLORD  BROS.  Inc. 

Syracuse,  N.  Y. 

Stoclclon,  CaW, 


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